Here is a statement issued by Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, in full:

"These are shocking and shameful comments from the President of the United States. I'm sorry, but there's no other word one can use but 'racist'.

"You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as 's***holes', whose entire populations are not white are therefore not welcome.

"The positive comment on Norway makes the underlying sentiment very clear.

"Like the earlier comments made vilifying Mexicans and Muslims, the policy proposals targeting entire groups on grounds of nationality or religion, and the reluctance to clearly condemn the antisemitic and racist actions of the white supremacists in Charlottesville, all of these go against the universal values the world has been striving so hard to establish since World War Two and the Holocaust.

"This isn't just a story about vulgar language, it's about opening the door to humanity's worst side.

"It's about validating and encouraging racism and xenophobia that will potentially disrupt and even destroy the lives of many people, and that's perhaps the single most damaging and dangerous consequence of this type of comment by a major political figure."